Australia’s largest online shopping destination, eBay.com.au, is forecasting that Monday 12th of December will set new records for online and mobile shopping across the country. More than 2.7 million people will visit eBay.com.au alone, with 1.7 million users visiting through mobile devices – 11 per cent more than in 2015 when mobile officially overtook desktop activity for the first time.

The busiest day for online and mobile shopping is a full week later than in previous years. This is due to a combination of the changed behaviours of today’s tech savvy consumer and the maturity of Click and Collect or Buy Online Pick Up In Store services which have dramatically shortened the Christmas delivery window.

On the 12th December, purchasing is expected to peak between 8pm and 9pm for desktop users and between 9pm and 10pm for mobile visitors. Across the entire site, there will be 113 million live listings, 64 per cent more than in 2015.

Steve Brennen, eBay Senior Director Marketing and Retail Innovation, said that a bumper trading week is expected starting on the 5th of December and culminating in a surge of visitors and sales on the 12th.

“We are expecting a high number of shoppers to take advantage of alternate delivery options like Click and Collect allowing them to pick up their gifts direct from retailers in all of the major cities and metro hubs across the country.’

“This year, there will be over 4 million products available for pick up from our retail partners like Target and The Good Guys as well as from thousands of Woolworths supermarkets. We predict the number of gifts being picked up in this way to be nearly 51 per cent higher than last year as Australians take advantage of the convenience being offered this Christmas.

“This appears to be a real tipping point in the way Australian’s shop in the lead up to Christmas”

eBay also predicts that given shopping records will be broken during a work day that there are likely to be a few indiscretions in the office as people sneak some shopping in without getting caught! Bosses of employees in Werribee VIC, Toowoomba QLD, Truganina VIC, Liverpool NSW, Campbelltown NSW and Mackay QLD are urged to go with the flow as they are set to be the top spending suburbs on the day.